Christopher Street West Association, Inc.

Mission:
Christopher Street West Assoc., Inc. (CSW) is a nonprofit service organization within the Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Transgender Community, founded in 1970. It is composed of volunteers committed to the goals of human rights, education, outreach and better understanding within our community, as well as the non-gay community. To further these goals, CSW brings together the skills, talents and visions of our diverse community to produce the Annual G/L/B/T Celebration, which is a unifying force that provides the resources to promote and accomplish these goals.

Community Reviews

This is an outstanding group of individuals that come together each year to bring about the best Los Angeles Pride season possible and somehow outdo themselves consistently. Every board member or volunteer I have come across has been excellent and kind to me. For full disclosure's sake, I was the honoree for outstanding youth leadership in 2009 and our relationship has held steady. To this day, I am still in touch with some of the members on a personal level and continue to give back when I can by being a parade judge, writing mini blogs about youth or just rounding up people to go in general. Even better than being an honoree, I was brought back next year to their special honoree brunch event and found out that because of my identifying as genderqueer, (in terms of gender) it inspired them to help make LA pride more inclusive. Traditionally, they had both a man and woman of the year, but realized that when they started to learn about different gender identities, they were not being inclusive and thus changed it to the person of the year award. They cared so much about my well-being and feeling included and would apologize if an event (as there are several) did not have a gender-neutral/unisex/family restroom for me to use. This meant more to me than the award itself (and that meant a lot!) and how they continue to tell the story about the change. Even with all of the faces they meet and all of the events they pull off, they still remember me and include me when possible. This organization has nothing but the best of intentions and I can't wait to celebrate more prides with them! I cannot say a bad thing about them as a whole because they do so much for our community and keep getting better :) Thank you, CSW!!!!!! You are much needed in our community!!!!!